January 2011 - Page 2 of 3 - Reading The Pictures

International Focus Photo January 19, 2011

Your Turn: Michelle and the Chinese

I found this stunning, and descriptive in all kinds of ways. It was taken this morning during the State arrival ceremony for China's President Hu.

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A Subsidiary of China, Inc.

I wonder how much the photographers or their editors were thinking, at least in part, about power, power-finance and pecking order.

Photo January 18, 2011

Beyond Tucson: A Second Look at Punditry

Certainly, you're not going to see a portrait of Stephen Colbert (in role) that isn't an exaggerated parody, and I find this one not just clever, but almost prescient given the current Tucson-inspired atmosphere of rhetoric-muted sobriety.

Photo January 17, 2011

The Hairshirts

Up to a dozen incoming Congressmen plan to live out of their offices? Not counting the men who live like boys, the vibe from the far-right and the new Tea Party members is one of self-abnegation.

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Violence in America? It's Evil Incarnate (Now Start the Name Calling)

Since the Giffords shooting a week ago, I've been troubled over the tendency to explain away Jared Loughner not as someone mentally ill but, instead, as evil incarnate.

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We Can Work it Out?

On this MLK Day, I've been looking for inspiration from the powerful images of King and Johnson.

Iraq and Afghanistan War Photo January 16, 2011

Big Media Sent 3 Of My Favorite War Photographers to Afghanistan And What They Brought Back Were The Near-Same Medevac Shots

What really dismays me -- the Afghan war crying out for context as far as big media is concerned -- is how three major organizations could send out three of the best photographers in the business and, within the space of just over two weeks, proudly publish nearly the...

Culture Focus Photo January 14, 2011

The Economist Cover and the Giffords Shooting: All About Guns

KAL's take, on the cover of The Economist, points to a single culprit in the Giffords shooting. It's guns.

Culture Focus Photo January 13, 2011

All I Can Say Is: We Are In A Moment

All I can say is: we are in a moment.

Disaster Focus Photo

Obama in Tucson: Scenes of Shift?

There were a lot of strong photos from Obama’s day in Tucson and the memorial service where he delivering the most tone-perfect and powerful speech/sermon since his campaign address on race. What I’m looking at most carefully though, and what I’m most curious about also, are signs and evidence...

Photo January 12, 2011

Palin's Tucson Rebuttal With the Sound Off: How Dare You!

Regardless how hard she tries to come off as reasoned -- and she made a pretty fair attempt at it today, reading off the teleprompter you see reflected in her glasses -- Sarah Palin can't help but function in that very narrow emotional register alternating between greater or lesser...

Disaster Focus Photo January 11, 2011

The Haiti Earthquake +1

Mario Tama has been commemorating ritual anniversaries by returning to specific places and re-photographing scenes he had captured before. On this one year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, the images quietly express the overarching present reality of an event that so galvanized the world a year ago.

Media Focus Photo

James Bond Aside, Beck Has Been Swinging Free For Years

What the Twitter buzz around this screen grab did contribute to the conversation since the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords is the importance of logic, factual accuracy and coherence. The reality is, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the far right have been consistent in stoking up the populace and...

Media Focus Photo January 10, 2011

The Old Heave Ho

I'm wondering what you thought of the tone of this opera-like media fancy (as well as the analogy to the original Tea Party itself) in light of the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords?

Culture Focus Photo

Going Forward: Civility and the Picture of Rep. Giffords (and Commander Kelly)

What makes this event so profound, and perhaps even a game changer in terms of the enmity and gridlock in Washington (not to mention the career trajectories of divisive figures like Palin, Limbaugh and the like) is the natural counterpoint, visually and character-wise, that the previously little-known Gifford stands...

Campaign '10 Photo January 8, 2011

The Giffords Shooting and the Palin Graphic: Almost Predictable

The most troubling image I saw regarding the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords occurred in the interview she gave to MSNBC back in March actually demonstrating with her hands how Palin has targeted her district with the crosshairs of a gun site.

Business Focus Photo January 7, 2011

The New Pentagon: Soldiers of Fortune 500

America can not only occupy a country and level its industrial capacity, it can now, as a combined war machine and colonial Chamber of Commerce, actually pave the way for US companies to move on in.

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Killing the Job-Killing Health Care Act

The guy on the Blackberry and the breezy painting notwithstanding, contempt’s the word as visual media highlights and dramatizes the Hail Mary gesture by House Republicans to repeal the new health care law. This image and the one below are featured in a Zimbio slide show that frontloads with...